Each year I take volunteers to South Africa to work in underprivileged communities. Most of it is hard and rewarding work. At the end of the trip, we, take time out with the group and head into the beautiful South African bush for a couple of days. On one of the mornings, we get up before sunrise to ride an African elephant.
You begin to get quite comfortable with the tranquillity and beauty of the surroundings even though you are on the largest land mammal in lion territory. You rock gently on the massive beasts who move incredibly quietly through the bush. The elephants tend to snap off a twig here and a branch there until suddenly a trunk is wrapped around a tree and a mighty pull occurs. After a few attempts, the elephant dips its head and gives the tree a mighty shove. The sounds of the tree being pulled and pushed from the ground and the might of the elephant are awesomely frightening and impressive at the same time. You are suddenly jolted from the serenity of the bush into the reality of the power of the elephants and the risk you are taking in riding these wild animals in a wild environment. It sure beats looking at an elephant in the zoo!
Innovation over the years has been dressed up as a tranquil journey by creating tools, models and cultural change programmes to make innovation easier and to reduce fear and uncertainty. But, no matter how safe you try to make it, the reality is, it’s not. (The elephant carers don’t for a moment lull us into a false sense of security). Trees come crashing down. Wild animals are lurking in the bush.
Will there ever be a point, besides in entrepreneurial firms or with people ‘hard-wired’ to innovate, when people are comfortable with innovation just to do it? Will they innovate because we, as leaders, have made it less scary? Probably not.
Our schooling system, adult training, and cultural expectations have created generations of people who seek to get the right answers, not the most creative solutions. We have robbed them of the ability to think creatively, to dream up innovative ideas and to question the status quo. They are not future-ready equipped with the mindset and skill sets to seek alternate and possibly more risky approaches. People aim for efficiency improvements and not game-changing ideas.
We are creatures of habit and seek to repeat actions and tasks. We use the same methods and processes and create products and services that look very similar to previous ones. We revel in the comfort zone and it takes a lot to move us out of it. Even when we make innovation simple and fun or give people tools, innovation is too risky for most people to step out. Many people only see the wild animals and hear the crashing trees. They aren’t interested in the journey. It’s the unknown power of the beast that frightens them. So they steer clear of innovation with its risk and uncertain outcomes.
How do we innovate? As a leader, future-proof your organization by leading for innovation. Create discomfort as a catalyst to shift people. You don’t experience the size of an African elephant until you are on its back. You don’t experience the raw power of an African elephant until it uproots a tree. We need to create discomfort around the status quo. External threats, massive budget cuts, huge market shifts create discomfort. Innovation suddenly becomes a little more appealing when things are uncertain. Let’s not try to eliminate fear and uncertainty around innovation because that may never be possible. Let’s rather create discomfort to drive innovation opportunities. Good leaders can do this by making staff aware of trends, products, potential disruptive behaviors in the market.
But more often than not we sit around and wait in the comfort and profitable state of the status quo. Suddenly a shift in regulations, a tough competitor and a new business taking customers threatens the status quo and innovation becomes an option to be considered albeit an uncomfortable one. Don’t wait for this reactive form of innovation. Rather create discomfort with the status quo and engage people in constant innovation.
Perhaps by seeking to eliminate discomfort we have crushed innovation and the opportunity to feel that rush of adrenalin sitting on the back of a massive elephant as the tree comes crashing down. If we are to innovate we need stop looking at the elephants in the zoo and to jump onto the back of one in the African bush.
By Peter Dry, 2018.
